High atop Italy’s Mt. Pirio, near the town of Padua, a group of Catholic mountain climbers scaled to the top of the peak and put down a special statue to commemorate their achievement: a statue of the Virgin Mary. Shortly after the Christmas season, the Virgin Mary statue disappeared from Mt. Pirio and was replaced by a tiny, bearded, pointy-hatted replacement. The Virgin Mary statue has been replaced by a gnome, allegedly by a rival group of mountaineers who have been protesting narcissistic acts in the wilderness such as statue-placing.
Where does it end? They steal our Virgin Mary ceramics, we steal their cache of gnomes. They defile the sacredness of wilderness with their Catholicism, we defile the sacredness of wilderness with our lawn ornaments. For the record, the protest group denies stealing the Virgin Mary statue, but have admitted to filling the space with the gnome.
Image: Life In Italy
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